Cactus Canyon WIP

[PacDude]

New fading dome flashers in place and backglass backdrop revised. Gameplay is also now much improved.

Time to start animating Bart, beer bottles, mines and trains I guess.

 

[Joe]

Looking good!!!!

 

[kristian]

Looks fantastic. The only complaint that I can make from the screenshot is the right part of the shooterlane. It looks like it's been "cut" from the source image. I'd just draw a straight line to the right edge and "straighten" it out.

Now this took 15 seconds. :)

 

[PacDude]

Latest Status Report:

Bart is now fully animated (moves left and right and his hat can fly up). I think that turned out pretty well.

More adjustments and decal style graphic additions (from photos or edited from table snapshots). You might notice the new slingshot and return lane bulbs, posts and rubbers. The right clear ramp return has been extended and adjusted.

Both clear return ramps now have some structural support "lines" that only show up as the ball passes under them so it doesn't just look like the ball moves over the decals. Plus I found a way to make the inlane lights show through the decal when off (making the "off level" light a drop wall makes them appear over decals just like the "on" states; fortunately, the overlappiong drop walls (when the "on" states rise) didn't interfere there).

More detail work behind the mine has been added. since it becomes visible as the mine moves downward (you can see some in the picture as I took a snapshot of it mostly down). I think I made it move too far down so I'm going to go back and edit the animation and put more frames in-between and have it stop about where it's shown (although I'll need Kristian or someone to verify if that's the right point or not).

Gun fight posts adjusted to be the correct size.

Right ramp decal edited like Kristian suggested.

The biggest thing left to do is the train. Given the issues I described, there's a chance it might not work out, but I'll see what I can do. I also need to rework the rollover lane lights. I probably won't do GI lights since they'd be a pain to do and only seem to go off during a tilt (otherwise they do nothing as far as I can tell, but that may have to do with the inability to handle 'dim' states in VPM thus far).


I'm going to have Kristian test the gameplay out, etc. and comment in the mean time since he has access to a real one.

 

[tiltjlp]

If only I could do work like that. Well, I guess something like this would be overdoing it for a bagatelle, but it sure is dazzeling.

John

 

[PacDude]

Following some of Kristian's feecback suggestions and a number of other things I found, I think the graphics are now improved some more, actually. I've realigned the train station ramp and what not as well. Really, there's too many new changes to list, so I'll just show the latest screenshot. I think you'll be much more amazed when you realize the mine, beer mug, bart and train are all animated and very SMOOTH at that.

I've also worked around the last remaining glitch issues (the rollover lights weren't working due to the overlapping mine reel). I've used regular VP lights with a decal on those two and reset the mine frame each light cycle, which enables those lights to function despite the overlap. All lights are now functional.

Basically, the only thing missing at this point are a few unknown or hard to work in flashers and the GI lights (which don't do anything except during a tilt because of the lack of state change in VPM for "dim" states which the real machine apparently uses since Kristian tells me the lights go off or dim right before the gun fight and VPM doesn't do anything in that situation so....)

Other than a few questions about how the real train moves when resetting position (in one step or a couple of steps) and little details like that, it's pretty much finished right now (unless I think of something else )

 

[StevOz]

I look forward to giving this recreation a whirl, just installed the extra 256Mb ram here and now all your fading light updates run smooth, with 250 to 300+ FPS. :)

 

[PacDude]

I'm probably going to release two versions, one for faster computers and one for slower ones. Namely, the train animation slows things down and I don't mean the walls dropping, but rather having 80 drop walls on the table (even if the train isn't moving) slows things down a good bit and gives me choppies here. Maybe it's memory (more ram might help?) or maybe a cpu drain, but either way it'd be simple to release a 20 frame or even a "no train" version that runs faster. AJ's will just get the full version. I'll probably release the other one here.

Just a few more things to adjust. It'll probably be finished on Sunday (my only day off this coming week).

 

[steven_nl]

Hi Pacdude

Great looking WIP shots. I love this table. Do you have plans to release it any time soon?

Cheers
Steven

 

[kristian]

Look at the date of the release thread... it's old as the mountains.

It has been released long time ago... download from here:
http://www.vpforums.com/vptables/tables.php?ltr=all

 

[steven_nl]

thanks

I couldn't find it in the dowload section here. so I thought it was "on the shelf"

 

[Shockman]

Damn. I wish that list of recent posts showed who started it, or at least the date. I thought a new table was being made of my favorite pin. PacDude's is a rare 'decal' graphic table for him. And I like textured models for graphics because like jp said these look too cluttered even when real ones don't.